Jumper Box Set Read online

  Jumper

  Books 1-6

  David W. Wright

  Sean Platt

  Copyright © 2019 by David W. Wright

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Jumper

  Karma Police

  The Collectors

  Deviant

  The Fall

  Homecoming

  Jumper

  Chapter One

  Saturday

  Three hundred fifty-six.

  I wake up remembering the number as if it’s the most important thing in the world. As far as I’m concerned, it is.

  Today is the 356th day that I’ve woken in a body that wasn’t my own. Three hundred and fifty-six days since I’ve been myself — a self I no longer remember.

  Today, I wake as a woman named Lara Spencer. Her other details must still be coming, like an old computer starting up, preparing files for me to access. First are the immediate things: the location of Lara’s buzzing alarm so my hand can reach out and find the clock without fumbling; figuring out if I’m alone in bed (I am); and then the detail that usually dictates how difficult this occupation will be — whether my host lives alone.

  It’s infinitely easier to wake up as someone living by themselves, rather than a person who lives with friends or family. Living with others, I have to be instantly on guard, second-guessing my every instinct, wondering if my actions are something my host for the day (or days) would do. Or worse, if my actions will somehow reveal the truth — that I am not the person they think I am.

  That’s the most frustrating part of all this — I call it jumping, from body to body — not remembering who I, The Jumper, am. I can barely remember details of all but the most recent lives I’ve been living. Everything else is a blur of memories, none of which, to my knowledge, belong to me.

  I only remember the number.

  It’s the last thing I do before I go to sleep each night. I add one to that day’s total, so I wake up remembering how many days I’ve been on this journey. It’s my markings on the prison wall of a sentence served separated from my body. That number is the only anchor to my life before this.

  Even the number could be a lie, though, as the only thing I have to go on is my fuzzy memories.

  The first body I remember waking up in that wasn’t my own was that of a man named Scott Cooper. He’d been in a car accident and was in a coma. I thought I was Scott — that it was me in a vegetative state, and this was my new reality. I could hear the nurses and his wife talking to him. It was sheer hell to feel barred from all response, attempting to will his body to move, to speak, to do something! I figured I’d found myself in a real-life purgatory, but then I woke the next day as a woman named Valerie and realized that something else was happening to me.

  Since then I wake up, usually every day, sometimes every couple of days, as somebody else. I’ve been both sexes, children and seniors, and held occupations from cop to criminal. I’ve yet to find any rhyme, reason, or common thread among my hosts save for one: they all live on or near the West Coast. Sometimes, I’ve woken a few states inland, but generally speaking that’s the only common denominator.

  But it isn’t enough to suss out how or why this is happening to me.

  Or who I am.

  It is said that we are the sum of our experiences. But my experiences of the past year are not my identity. They belong to others, borrowed by me. And if I am not the sum of stolen experiences, then what am I?

  Who am I?

  Each day I feel like the answer is on the tip of my tongue if only I can piece some unseen puzzle together.

  The alarm’s annoying bray shatters any attempt at thinking through this.

  As my hand finds the button to kill the alarm, I look at the time.

  7:14 a.m.

  I sit up in bed as details of my host bleed into my brain. I’m twenty-four, a college grad working as a graphic designer at an online paper called the Bay Cove Chronicle — Clay County, Washington’s Finest News Source, as they say. I look around the bedroom. Violet walls lined with photos, drawings, and paintings. I’m not sure how many, if any, of these are Lara’s work. I could try and search her memories for some background, but it’s probably not worth the hassle. The more I probe my host’s memories, the worse the headaches inside their bodies. I’m not sure why this is, though I have a theory that there is some part of the host person still here. But I have no way of knowing for certain, and every attempt to engage the person inside results in me talking to myself.

  It’s best to let memories come as needed. And that’s how they most often arrive: on a need-to-know basis. I’ll usually get a sliver of recall — not enough to draw context of why a particular memory is important, or how it relates to other things. Which is why this is always so much harder when I wake up in large families.

  I get up and head to the shower.

  The hot water beats on my scalp. I let my mind wander, hoping for something that might belong to me. But nope. Today, I’m only getting random thoughts from Lara’s head, chief among them a date she’s scheduled for tonight, with a guy named Gavin. They’ve been talking online for nearly four months, but they haven’t yet met.

  So, of course, the night Lara’s not here will be that first date.

  Damn.

  I have two choices. I can go on the date or reschedule it. But as I try and sift through her memories, I can’t find anything that might help me make the right decision.

  This is one of the other difficult parts about this thing. I never know when I’m going to be in a host’s body on an important day. And seeing as I have no idea what my host remembers when they return to their body, I don’t want to shortchange them of an important memory.

  I can only imagine how many relationships I have inadvertently ruined because I was in a person’s body on an important day. My actions could alter the course of someone’s entire life for better or for worse. I’d hate to think this date could be The One, and my canceling might ruin everything. On the flip side, what if we have a fantastic first date, then tomorrow, or whenever Lara returns, her evening is a mystery? That would screw things up even worse.

  I’ve found workarounds — like getting blind-ass drunk, enough that it would explain to anyone, including the host, why they couldn’t remember anything.

  But that’s always a last resort, and it's rarely practical.

  I always try to leave a host’s life exactly the same as when I was imprisoned inside it. Which isn’t always easy to do.

  Too often I’ve found myself in the life of someone in dire need of change. A woman being verbally or physically abused by a boyfriend or husband, a worker being shit on by their boss, or someone wasting their potential with horrible choices or a general lack of action.

  I want to shake the host’s body, and yell at them, “What the hell are you doing?” And it’s so hard not to clean up their messes. Leave their shitty boyfriends, quit their jobs, get them off their asses — something to improve their lives in some way.

  But I know that no matter what I do, I can’t improve their lives forever. And I’m likely to mess everything up, especially if they have no recollection of events from when I was in their bodies.

  I often do nothing.

  I get out of the shower and get dressed. I start to pick a red shirt from Lara’s closet but get a flash of something telling me that she’d never wear that shirt. I find a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved blue tee, which feels immediately better.

  I step out of my bedroom, surprised to find that I’m not alone after all. Sleeping on the couch, beneath a large red throw, is a teenage girl.

  I’m confused, but then a name pops into my head — Allie Martin. The fifteen-year-old who lives in an apartment down the hall.

  Why is she here?

  Did she spend the night at Lara’s? Was Lara babysitting?

  I can’t find anything in Lara’s memories regarding last night. I only remember fragments from yesterday’s host. I’m certain that something is wrong with the girl, though I’m not sure what. I need to wake Allie and find out why she’s here.

  I go over, gently touch her shoulder and give a gentle shake.

  She turns, groggily wiping her long brown hair from her face, then looks up at me. Confusion surrenders to a smile. “Good morning. I hope you don’t mind. Mom was in bad shape last night.”

  I’m not sure what she means or what that has to do with her being on Lara’s couch. Then I’m hit with a flash of memory: Allie crying in Lara’s doorway, bruises on her left cheek and eye. Lara telling her she doesn’t have to take it. She can call the sheriff’s office. But Allie won’t do that. Lara gives her a key to her apartment and says, “Next time she gets like this, you come here. Okay? Even if I’m not home. You come here and wait her out.”

  I don’t know if this is the first time Allie has taken her up on the offer or the umpteenth.

  I sit next to her on the couch and say, “Sorry.”

  I’m not sure how much affection I should show. Would Lara hug Allie to let her know things are okay? Or would she keep a comfortable distance? I don’t know Allie, or Lara, despite wearing her body. So much for the ease of living alone.

  After a moment of silence, Allie leans on me.

  I’m guessin
g this is normal, so I don’t flinch away despite feeling compelled to. It’s always weird when people show affection, or any kind of intimate relationship, with my host. It feels like a stranger violating my personal space. Like, wait, I don’t know you; why are you hugging me? I always have to fight the urge to pull back, pretend so as not to break the illusion or offend them.

  But there’s something else, too.

  A part of me that doesn’t want to become attached to people I’ll be leaving in a day or two.

  I wrap my arm around Allie. “So, how bad was it this time?”

  “She was close to getting violent again. I don’t even know what set her off. I was in my room doing homework, and she just burst in, lit up, bitching about God knows what. Something to do with her work, but then what an ungrateful little bitch I am and how she should never have had me.”

  It hurts to hear this. I’ve been inside too many people who’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of hate, and I still can’t understand it. I know the abuser is usually hurt themselves, and often a victim as well, but being a victim, you’d think they’d understand what they’re doing. You’d think they wouldn’t inflict such hate toward their own child. Don’t they have any self-awareness, recognition of what they’re doing? Can’t they stop?

  I suppose it’s only a matter of time before I find myself inside the body of just such an abuser. Maybe I’ll get a firsthand taste of why they do what they do. Of why they can’t quit. God, I hope not. I hope that if and when it happens I’ll have the self-awareness to stop. Maybe break the cycle for someone. But how can I know that any good I do in a body will have any lasting impact? Maybe I won’t treat my family like shit for a day or two, but then once I’m gone, will it be a return to hell for them? A pleasant memory left behind, like a family vacation they’ll never take again? Perhaps my kindness would only prolong the misery, giving a husband or wife enough false hope to ignore the decay of their rotting relationship — thinking that maybe the person is capable of kindness, that maybe they’ll change if only the abused can just wait a little longer.

  “So, what happened next?” I ask Allie.

  “I bolted, said maybe she’d be better off if I left. She pointed at the door and laughed, ‘Go. You won’t last a day on your own!’”

  “Don’t you think she’ll be worried?”

  “Nah, she won’t even remember when she wakes up. Whenever that is. Today’s Saturday, so it probably won’t be until four or five.”

  I shake my head.

  Allie’s so casual. It must happen all the time.

  She looks at me, “Can I come to your office again? I really don’t want to go back on the off chance she’s still awake and drinking.”

  A burst of memories explodes in my mind, showing me Allie spending several Saturdays at the office with Lara. She’s a budding artist herself, so she loves watching Lara work, even if it’s on stuff that isn’t especially artistic.

  “Sure,” I say, hoping it’s okay to bring her in without calling anyone.

  “Mind if I shower and change?” Allie pats a backpack on the ground.

  “Sure,” I say, wondering just how normal this is for the girl. A part of me wants to talk some sense into her mother. But if Lara hasn’t done it before now, there must be a reason. In all likelihood, I’ll only make things worse for Allie.

  As we drive to my office, Allie talks about going to college. I wonder if this is as animated as she gets. She seems reasonably sure she can get an art scholarship for a school on the East Coast and get far away from here. She just hopes she can wait out the raging storm of her mother’s mood swings long enough to escape.

  I wish I had advice to give her, but my childhood is a mystery. I don’t even know my original name or sex. I only have the jumbled bits of the lives I’ve lived against my will, without the history or context to know how things worked out after I left. A part of me thinks that what Lara’s doing now seems like the best course of action. Would her life be any better if she had her mother arrested, or if she was put into the foster care system? Maybe her best bet is to tolerate this life as long as she can, then run away and never look back.

  But I won’t tell her that. I don’t want to contradict any of Lara’s previous advice. Plus, she and Allie have a history. She probably has a better idea than I do how severe the abuse is. From what I know of teenagers, reality is often amplified beyond how an adult would see it. Maybe things are bad at home, without being devastating.

  I feel awful for thinking this, especially with the memory of Allie’s bruised face lurking in Lara’s head.

  Lara’s phone buzzes in my purse. I’m driving, so Allie offers to see who it is.

  “It’s Yvonne. She wants you to pick up her regular from Starbucks.”

  I draw a blank, then Lara’s memories fill me in. Latin woman, mid-thirties, editor at the online newspaper. Her regular is an iced coffee, two sugars, extra cream.

  “Tell her okay,” I say, accessing Lara’s memories to find the closest Starbucks. Memories are interesting in the way they usually fill me in on the stuff I need to know just as I need to know it. I hope her memories continue to come forth as needed, as I don’t know the first thing about graphic design. If Lara’s skills refuse to kick in, I’ll have to find a graceful exit.

  Sometimes, a host’s memories will fail me at the worst possible time. I’ve had to leave work more often than I care to admit, or could probably count. A few times, jobs have intimidated me so much that I had to call in sick knowing there was no way I could fake it well enough to get by. Like the time I woke up as an airline pilot. I wasn’t about to take people’s lives in my hands by hoping the skills would come to me. So I live by a simple rule: If I don’t think I can do the job, or my attempt might endanger people or lose someone their job, I stay home. This allows me to adhere to my prime directive: never interfere with my host’s life.

  I arrive at the office with coffee, and Allie, in hand.

  “Hey, Allie, how’s it going?” Yvonne says, directing her to one of the design room’s three empty chairs.

  The two girls talk with immediate comfort, suggesting that Allie accompanying Lara to the job isn’t uncommon. Yvonne is either an understanding boss or the paper offers a lax work environment.

  The paper is small with only six non-advertising staffers and a core group of only four people: the editor Yvonne, Lara, and two reporters named Katelynn and Tommy — neither are at the office today. The paper also has stringers and interns who do a bulk of the weekday reporting. But today is Saturday, and the paper’s only residents are Yvonne and Lara, working to finish the Sunday edition.

  Yvonne updates me on what needs to be finished: last-minute changes to client ads and tweaking a few story images, while she finishes editing copy.

  Allie spends much of the morning surfing the web on one of the computers next to me and chatting with Yvonne, who is very talkative. I’m thankful for Allie. If she weren’t here, I’d get nothing done, or Yvonne might notice me stumbling through some basic Photoshop work.

  At one, Yvonne asks us to join her for lunch at the corner diner.

  We’re squeezed into a cozy booth in the back, waiting for our food. “So, tonight’s the big night, eh?” Yvonne says.

  I play dumb, not sure if Lara had told Yvonne about the date or if she’s talking about something else. I don’t want to reveal something Lara wouldn’t want to be known.

  Yvonne looks at me grinning. “Oh, come on, don’t act like you’re not excited.”

  “Oh, you’re finally meeting Gavin?” Allie asks with a wide smile that seems older than her age. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I dunno,” I say. Is this the sort of stuff that Lara would share with Allie? It must be since she knew his name.

  “How long have you been talking to him?” Yvonne asks.

  “Four months,” I say like it’s no big deal.

  “Show me the pic again.”